Shootout leaves suspect dead
Wife arrested, accused of harboring a fugitive
Wife accused of harboring a fugitive after gunfight with task force members kills alleged mail thief
A suspected mail thief is dead and his wife is charged with harboring a fugitive after a gunfight with members of a U.S. Marshals task force in Southeast Albuquerque on Tuesday night.
Federal officers were looking for 31-year-old Mario Montoya, who disappeared from a halfway house on May 20, according to a statement released by Elizabeth Martinez, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. They found him with his wife, Colleen Calamia, 37, at an apartment on Western Skies near Tramway and Central on Tuesday afternoon.
“The complaint alleges that Calamia then left the residence in the black Escalade and USMS deputies executed a traffic stop on her vehicle,” Martinez said. “When the deputies questioned Calamia about Montoya’s whereabouts, she allegedly told them that Montoya was alone in the residence.”
The deputy marshals attempted to arrest Montoya, and he fired at them, Martinez said. The deputies shot back.
“After the arrest team was able to retreat to a safe location, a second team later entered the residence,” she said. “The second team found Montoya in a closet. He had been struck in the exchange of gunfire and was deceased.”
Calamia was arrested and is expected to make her initial appearance in federal court today.
Montoya’s death is under investigation, Martinez said. Multiple law enforcement agencies, including the
Albuquerque Police Department and Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, were at the scene into early Wednesday.
This is the fifth time in five months that shots have been fired during an arrest by the U.S. Marshals Service task force.
On Jan. 15, a man killed himself when they attempted to pull him over for violating federal probation in Colorado. On Feb. 20, they shot and killed Edgar Camacho-Alvarado, 23, at a West Central trailer park while they were searching for another fugitive. Two months later, a Bernalillo County sheriff’s deputy on a marshals’ task force shot and killed Jacquelyn Burke, 24, while trying to arrest her for a probation violation. Last week, a marshal fired a gun during the arrest of a wanted man in a Northwest Albuquerque neighborhood, but no one was injured.
Montoya, a felon, had been arrested in February for breaking into mailboxes near Juan Tabo and Central. A witness saw him break into a community mailbox and throw the mail into a trash bin when confronted. The witness said Montoya pointed a gun at him and drove away in a red Pontiac.
Officers saw Montoya a later on the westbound ramp of Interstate 40 at Louisiana, according to the complaint. They found a gun, ammunition and mail that didn’t belong to him inside his car.
Montoya was charged with possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of stolen mail, according to online court records.
He was released from jail Friday and ordered to stay in the custody of La Pasada Halfway House on Fourth Street, according to court documents. Martinez said that he fled from the house in a black SUV the same day and that deputy marshals found him at the apartment on Western Skies four days later.
Shal Lee lives with her boyfriend and tw o small children in an apartment above the one where Montoya was found. She said that around 8 p.m. they heard what sounded like a volley of gunshots, too many to count.
A couple of hours later, the couple had just gone to bed when they were awakened by two officers in SWAT gear who had entered their living room through a balcony.
“We were scared and came running into the kitchen because we thought someone was trying to break in,” Lee said. “They were like, ‘You guys have to get everything and come out.’ They said someone is locked inside downstairs.”
The officers took the family out of the apartment in an armored vehicle.
Rose Sena, the property manager for the complex, said authorities called her at 2:20 a.m. asking for permission to search a vacant apartment next to the one where the shooting took place. She said that when she arrived, she saw officers had burst through a closet in the vacant apartment into the one next door.
Sena said that when she went into the apartment where the shooting took place, it was covered in blood and bullet holes.
“There were lots of bullet holes in the bathroom door,” she said. “It looked like they shot through a TV into the bathroom door.”